Bedlam
by x.X.x.Nefarious.x.X.x
Summary: No gypsy, slut or doxy  Shall win my mad Tom from me  I'll weep all night, with stars I'll fight  The fray shall well become me.


Disclaimer: The Characters in this story aren't mine, nor are their worlds. I make no money, else I would not be so god damned broke.

AN-Everyone! This is an awesome Fanfiction, right? SO you should review. =) PLEASE? I'll always reply, and rant at you if you only favorite =(

Warnings!: Slightly crazy.

Bedlam

_Chaos; Discord; Madmen; Originates from St. Mary Bethlehem Hospital _

The first time Beyond heard the Voice, he was floored. It was a strange, reedy exhale of sound that was oddly breathless. It was a noise akin to that of breaking glass. It was male, but it was soft. It was _beautiful_.

"_For to see mad Tom of Bedlam... _

_Ten thousand miles I traveled... _

_Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes... _

_For to save her shoes from gravel..."_

Beyond Birthday was not easily moved. He was not easily interested, nor was he easily lead. But, for a moment, he would have done anything for that voice, the Voice. For a moment... and then it was gone, like the sound. He was curious now, though. He was curious to see who it was that made him lose himself utterly.

For, you see, though beyond had lived and thrived in the shadow of L, he had never lost himself. Not really. He had always kept those fragile parts of himself private. His weakness for jam, his love for the Wara Ningyo.

His wish for death.

But in the instant that the Voice made contact with his ear, he had become a puppet with cut strings. He had wished to be whatever the Voice wanted him to be, and it _infuriated_ him. It made him so angry, so desperately _curious_, that he could not sleep. Not until he heard that voice again. Not until he made it _stop!_

There couldn't be many places to look. It was a small hospital after all. A hospital made only for those with too much power and a death wish. He had been brought here by that damned woman, Naomi Misora, death date January 2, 2007. She would die at twenty-seven.

So young.

She had honestly tried her best, and in the end had foiled him. Beyond wished she had not. B wished he had died.

So, instead, he focused on the voice. He prowled the hallways. He prowled the courtyard. He sat quietly and opened his ears to any sound, a hint the Voice or that haunting melody.

Tom of Bedlam.

How suiting. The song was rumored to have been written by an inmate of an insane asylum, Bethlehem Hospital in London, to be exact. Bedlam. It was said that the conditions were so dreadful that the dangerous inmates were manacled or chained to the floor, and that the chaotic noise that spilled forth was great enough to make any sane man crazy.

How delightful.

It was on one of these introspective searches for the Voice that Beyond struck gold.

"I don't want to eat that. It tastes like shat. Oh! I rhymed! Let's see... the cat and the bat sat with the rat in the top hat as he took a shat at the vat flat. Oh fun! Let's sing a song, shall we, Ms. Blue?"

"I told you, Harold, my name is no-"

"_Still I sing bonny boys... bonny mad boys..._

_Bedlam boys are bonny..._

_For they all go bare and they live by the air..._

_and they want no DRINK NOR MONEY!"_

Beyond swept into the room, ignoring etiquette, not that he ever truly bothered with it in the first place. He came into a strange scene. There was a frantic woman, who was _not_ named Ms. Blue, though that was the color of her eyes. Beyond marked her off as another psychotherapist, and dismissed her as unnecessary. She would die in exactly four years at the age of thirty-five.

The other person in the room, however, was not to be dismissed. He was frightfully thin, thinner even than Beyond himself. He was pale and ghostly as porcelain, and seemed to be fading ever so slowly, even as B kept his red gaze fixed on him. He had a riot of hair, soft but wild in a way that Beyond's was not.

All these features, though striking, paled in comparison to his eyes.

They were the kind of eyes you can't not say anything about. They were an electric green maelstrom of emotions and feelings that made the atypically anti-social B marvel.

The two intense gazes locked. Harold, for that was what Ms. Not-Blue, whose real name was Elizabeth Green, had called the Voice, blinked lazily at him from under heavy black lashes. Those acidic eyes eating away at him. The Voice was so different from what B had expect, but for some reason he could not remember what exactly that had been.

"Hullo." said the Voice.

"..." said B.

"Our name is Harry, and though we tell everyone to call us that, they seem to only want to call us Harold. What is your name? We bet it's interesting. You seem the type. Does it start with an... L? No... you seem more of an R type... or a Q! No..."

"B."

"Hmm? A B? AB, like the blood type! No, anyway, let's see... no, no don't tell us... not Boris... or Byron, not Bailey or Bo. Not Barbara? Are you sure? Okay, we didn't think so. How about Richard? Wait, that doesn't start with a B..."

"Beyond."

"Beyond?" Harry asked, confused.

"Beyond." B repeated this slowly, as if to a child.

"Beyond what?"

"Birthday."

"Beyond whose birthday?"

"No, just Beyond Birthday."

"_What?_"

"My name. Beyond Birthday." 

"Oh! Well, why didn't you just say so! We're Harry Potter, charmed we're sure." he gave a silly little smile, and for a moment Beyond wondered why he was here.

Then he spotted the bandages.

Harry's wrists and lower arms were swathed in bandages, dotted with blood. They looked fresh, though Beyond knew that couldn't be the case. It had to have been more than two weeks since he had last heard the Voice, last heard Harry.

"Mr. Potter, will you ple-"

"No. Now go away Elizabeth. We're done with you. You are no longer needed. You have bored us enough with your nonstop questions, and we have a new guest to keep us company. Now leave." This was delivered in a frigid tone, so cold that B could almost see his breath. Actually, he could see his breath. Had it always been this cold in the room?

Apparently not, if Elizabeth's expression was anything to go by. She stood up abruptly, grabbing her folder and briefcase. She fled from the room as if the hounds of hell themselves were on her heels.

Suddenly, the room began to thaw. B saw absentmindedly that the frost that had collected on the single window began to drip onto the floor, the moisture making a dark stain on the wood.

It reminded him vaguely of blood.

"Beyond? You can sit down, if you'd like." Harry pat the space next to him on the bed, scooting over slightly. B threw a look at the chair, but opted for the bed. After all, after Harry's previous display, he did not feel particularly like angering the green eyed boy.

"We'd ask why you're here, but we agree that that would be silly, and probably counterproductive. We're here for the same thing, we're afraid." He lifted his mummified arms, pointing sadly with a tilt of his head.

"..."

"Don't talk much, do you, Beyond Birthday. What a pretty name you have, and a funny one, too." Harry looked up, and momentarily screwed up his eyes, as if looking at something behind B. Beyond resisted the urge to turn around. Suddenly, Harry nodded, as if satisfied, and looked back at B.

"We agree that we would really like to see you. We're practically blind without our glasses. You're warm though, so it's okay. Would you like a lemon drop? Our crazy, pardon the usage, old professor brings them to us when he comes to check up on us. No? No you don't want one? That's okay, you seem to be more of a strawberry kind of person. We can smell it, faintly, on you. We agree that it smells very good." Harry buried his thin, cold nose into Beyond's neck, breathing deeply the scent of blood and strawberry jam.

"...You smell nice, as well."

"You spoke some more! We're so happy, Beyond! We like your voice, it is pleasing. Please, can you tell us a story? We've never been told a story before, either of us, and we'd like to hear one, before we die."

"..."

"It's okay, if you don't know any. Make one up. You seem smart enough. We'd like a story with a happy ending, but it's okay if you can't manage that. We don't mind."

So Beyond told him (Them?) a story. He told a story of a shadow, who strove to become real, and in so made himself the antithesis of his body. Harry nodded quietly, and when Beyond became quite, he would gently urge him to continue. The boy was fascinated by the way B's throat moved around the words, and he would gently stroke the bobbing Adam's apple every once in a while.

B seemed not to notice.

They stayed that way for an eternity, it seemed, until Harry's breathing slowed and evened, and Beyond fell silent. He didn't even move then. When Beyond would look back, many years later, his memory proved faulty. In his memory, they had never moved from that spot. They had just laid there, intertwined. Forever.

They were like that, Harry and Beyond. For years, they stayed together always. Love isn't the right word, though it would have been for anyone else. Love is not the right word, but it's the first one that comes to mind. It could have been love. Maybe.


End file.
